Monday, April 02, 2012

Should I stay or should I go?

We found a fabulous apartment, perfect in almost every way: balcony overlooking a garden à la française with the chateau in the distance, a huge "parental suite" under the eaves, all located right in the neighborhood we want. Almost perfect except (most notably) the price, which per-square-meter was outrageous, in our opinion. We made an offer, and were laughed at. We've decided that unless the seller gets desperate and calls us back later, or something else truly exceptional appears on the market in the next two weeks, we're staying put for another year. I cleaned our windows this weekend in celebration (?), and my husband scrubbed the balcony. On the schedule in the next few weeks is figuring out how to fit Mademoiselle's crib -- currently next to our bed -- into le Petit's bedroom. Chez parisienne, we do anticlimactic with flair, n'est-ce pas?

And we spent the weekend hand-wringing and worrying and oh-why-oh-why-ing, intermittently griping and yelling at each other. Are we pathetic for ended up at no decision, or wise? I tried to maintain a sense of humor by putting on The Clash and writing up a list of the relative advantages of staying put or moving, in two columns entitled "Cool it" and "Blow." I thought this was pretty clever. My husband didn't. Le Petit put his hands over his ears, while Mademoiselle bobbed her head and grooved when "Rock the Casbah" came on.

Le Petit tried to help us by drawing a map of Versailles with the château and park and a network of streets, with a big dot where our future house will be.

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About Me

I was born in Seattle, but now live on the other side of the map, just outside of Paris. I fell in love with and married a Frenchman in Boston, and in 2003 we took the great leap across the Atlantic. In the summer of 2007 we welcomed our son, le Petit, and in late 2010 our daughter, Mademoiselle. This is the story of my life as a pseudo-Parisienne in my country of adoption. Contact me at parisiennemaispresque (at) gmail (dot-com).